Mike Swick: I'm the healthiest I've ever been
After his loss to Paulo Thiago in 2010, Mike Swick took two and a half years off due to his esophageal spasm condition. He came back in 2012 with a knockout win over DaMarques Johnson and then a KO loss to Matt Brown.
Turns out, Swick wasn't as healthy as he thought he was. In the two and a half years since his last bout, Swick has concentrated on coaching at the AKA Thailand gym he created and getting his health on track.
He also considered retirement, but could not bring himself to do it. "Yeah, definitely. I mean, I never officially retired, but after that last fight, that was I guess the turning point in my career where I knew that if my health didn't get better that I couldn't do this," Swick told Submission Radio during a recent interview.
"You know, I just couldn't eat the food I need and get the recovery that I needed to compete at that level and feel good. So I literally took it completely out of my mind. I completely assumed I wasn't going to fight. I accepted it and I just continued to build this gym and develop fighters and train fighters. Which is a great process because during [that time[ I found my health and I figured out how to basically fix my health without taking all the medications that they were having me on."
Swick healed himself and is now set to return to the Octagon this July at UFC 189 against Alex Garcia. He may have had to wait a long time to get back into action but the Ultimate Fighter veteran says that the time is right.
"I'm literally the healthiest I've been maybe in my whole UFC career, and so now to get the opportunity. [It is the] Perfect timing to be able to do this camp out of this gym I built," he said.
Of course, Swick thought he had been here before only to get sick again. This time, however, Swick says it will be different.
No longer dependent on medications, Swick is truly healthy now. "There's no comparisons," he explained.
"So I was on the medication at that time which didn't help my body, and it actually helped in the beginning, even though it wasn't very good. The problem was when I'd ween myself off the medicine during fight camp, it came back. So I kinda like prematurely announced that my health was great, even though it technically was better because I was relying on this medication. And when I took them out to be able to train proper and get that out of my system and just focus on training, it went back."
The tax on his system forced Swick to shrink down in size as he prepared to fight Brown and Johnson. Whereas most fighters fight at a good deal heavier than they weigh in on the day before, Swick was walking in quite light to take on some of the best in the world.
"So now here I am at at fight camp, getting ready for fights, and I'm having the same issues. And so I shrunk down. For both of those fights I was weighing basically 170 pounds fight day, or weigh-in day. I didn't have to cut any weight and I was just real depleted. So, the first fight was a great ending. The ending was awesome. It was a great knockout or whatever, but the fight itself was horrible. You know, both of those fights. If you look at the actual fight and my performance during those fights - whether I won or not - it wasn't good performances, and I definitely wanted to fix that. I want to come back and show that, that wasn't me."
Now, Swick enters a training camp his full self, and hungry to compete again. "I definitely missed it," the 35 year-old said of fighting. Mike Swick is still hungry for battle, 17 years into his MMA career.
"I feel like I could go out there and perform better," he concluded.
"And, have a good time and just enjoy the moment."
